Leadership
Maya L. Harris
Vice PresidentMaya Harris is vice president for the foundation's Democracy, Rights and Justice program. She leads the program's worldwide efforts to strengthen the rule of law, improve government transparency and accountability, and create opportunities for civil society to thrive and fulfill the promise of human rights. She also oversees the foundation's regional programming in Brazil, Mexico and Central America, and the Andean Region and Southern Cone.
Before joining the Ford Foundation in 2008, Maya was executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union of Northern California, the largest ACLU affiliate in the United States. She oversaw the affiliate's litigation, public education, lobbying and grassroots organizing work on issues ranging from racial and criminal justice to reproductive, immigrant and LGBT rights. In 2006, she served as lead counsel for the ACLU-NC in League of Women Voters v. McPherson, which restored the voting rights of more than 100,000 Californians who were wrongfully disenfranchised.
Prior to the ACLU, Maya conducted research and policy advocacy on policing issues at PolicyLink and worked in civil litigation at the law firm of Jackson Tufts Cole and Black, LLP. She was dean of Lincoln Law School of San Jose, and has also served as an adjunct law professor teaching gender discrimination and contracts.
Maya has written policy reports and published commentary on civil rights issues in numerous media outlets. She is also a contributing author to "The Covenant with Black America" (Third World Press, 2006), a collection of essays by African Americans, which climbed to No. 1 on The New York Times best-seller list.
She received her J.D. degree with Distinction from Stanford Law School and a bachelor's degree from the University of California at Berkeley.
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